Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple (4 stars)

Every Seattle resident should read this one. I'm giving it 4 stars because of all the great Seattle tidbits it dropped, if I lived somewhere else, it would be a 3.5.

I had no idea who Cliff was until my wife started talking about him one day shortly after we moved here and referring to him as "my weather guy". I've since read many an excited blog post by Cliff about various storm events. I agree with the sentiment.

We sat in silence. Then, at ten of four, we had to turn the radio back on because Fridays at ten of four is when we listen to our favorite person ever, Cliff Mass. If you don’t know who Cliff Mass is, well, he’s this thing me and Mom have, this awesome weather geek who loves weather so much you have no choice but to love him in return.

Yes. Two opposing grids have not been kind to intersection sanity in this city:

Take five-way intersections. The first time Bernadette commented on the abundance of five-way intersections in Seattle, it seemed perfectly relevant.

Favourite quote:

Chihulys are the pigeons of Seattle. They’re everywhere, and even if they don’t get in your way, you can’t help but build up a kind of antipathy toward them.

Very entertaining. I actually quite enjoyed the descriptions of the husband geek-rockstar on the Microsoft connector and the over eager admin.

4 stars.

The Alienist by Caleb Carr (3 stars)

It's essentially a Sherlock Holmes novel narrated by the Watson-equivalent, in this case a journalist with a bizarre amount of free time and complete lack of any need to earn a living.

The interesting pieces are the historical setting, that also involves Theodore Roosevelt and J.P Morgan, as well as the early attempt at criminal profiling and psychology.

Prior to the twentieth century, persons suffering from mental illness were thought to be “alienated,” not only from the rest of society but from their own true natures. Those experts who studied mental pathologies were therefore known as alienists.

It's fairly standard Sherlock Holmes fare. God I wish they would eat at a different restaurant, I got so sick of hearing about Charlie Delmonico.

3 stars.

The Shadowglass by Rin Chupeco (3 stars)

Too far behind on reviews. I left myself two notes: "Luggage on azi is ridiculous" and this quote:

“But we have been conditioned to obey authority in subtle manners, Zoya. You would be surprised at how very few actually speak up in the face of injustice.”

But have literally forgotten the entire plot. That usually means it was a solid 3.

3 stars.

The Heart Forger by Rin Chupeco (3.5 stars)

I left it too long to write this review and I didn't take many notes. Usually that means it's pretty good and I don't have complaints. I did get really sick of horses apparently being able to ride on dragons. Just picture that, it's ridiculous.

Also, WTF is the point of Tea learning sword skills, she'd be far better off using that time to practice magic. I feel like Chupeco is overdoing the set up for a "and that's why she needed sword skills" gotcha plot point in the future.

3.5 stars.

The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco (3 stars)

The premise is appealing: the protagonist accidentally raises her brother from the dead. So begins this Memoirs of a Geisha meets Harry Potter. I think it could have worked: entwining magic and Geisha traditions into a Japanese style magic academy to protect the world from daeva. But it isn't really delivered.

The plot moves along at a glacial pace. Endless descriptions of dress patterns, hair pins, and Geisha politics. After Tea starts her training it takes many chapters and another magical accident before it actually moves away from Geisha protocol, tea ceremonies and parties and onto actual magic.

The delay seems insane as Mykaela is literally dying under the weight of being the only dark asha and Tea is the only possible replacement and burden-sharer. Guess we'd better make sure she goes to lots of parties instead of learning magic!

Having said all that, the world building is good, just way too slow and overly descriptive. The end of the novel quickens the pace and the future timeline has very cleverly hooked me into reading the whole series because man does it sound dark and interesting. Maybe this one was just slow to start?

3 stars

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix (4 stars)

Almost certainly the greatest book cover of all time. I'll be honest that's really the only thing that drew me to this, horror is not really my genre.

I had a great time reading this. It's packed full of nostalgia, it's fairly over the top and in your face, but certainly not to the point of making me angry (I'm looking at you Ready Player One).

It's a classic teen horror story straight out of the 80s. Highly entertaining, occasionally funny, but not that much, and occasionally a bit more creepy than I would like reading it just before I go to sleep.

4 stars.

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (3 stars)

After the strength of Uprooted, I was excited for this one, but it fell a little flat. I was really excited by the potential of this world when these mysterious Staryk moving roads showed up in the early novel, but was disappointed in the result.

Overall the novel is much more strongly rooted in fairy tale land (Rumpelstiltskin) than Uprooted. That leads to these fairly ridiculous plot constructions where someone agrees to a grand bargain and the other party tries to come up with a clever way around the letter of the agreement. The dialog sounds like this:

“Of course you can, mortal girl,” he said over his shoulder, as if I was the one being a fool. “A power claimed and challenged and thrice carried out is true; the proving makes it so.”

And of course if you do manage to weasel your way out of the deal, the villain needs to be all honourable and stick to their side of the deal. Just like, well, real bad guys would never do.

I liked the idea of the Staryk being kinda like the white walkers from GoT except instead of just an evil domination foil, we actually get to discover their true motivation. That would have worked a lot better without the trope-laden fairytale framework.

There's quite an interesting treatment of Judaism, and struggle against widespread antisemitism.

The worst part of the whole novel though is really the huge number of first-person POVs. It gets crazy. It feels like every single character is getting their own POV, and it's really draining to read. Why should I care what this person thinks? They will disappear in a few pages anyway.

3 stars